Policy adminstration

BLOOMFIELD, Conn.-- CIGNA HealthCare and WebMD Health today announced a multi-year agreement that will offer help to millions of CIGNA HealthCare members in making vital health care decisions and in understanding and using their health care plan. Under the agreement, CIGNA will integrate WebMD Health's comprehensive suite of online health information and decision support tools into myCIGNA.com, the personal health benefits Web portal for CIGNA HealthCare members.

Uniondale, NY--OnlineBenefits Inc., provider of Internet-based HR solutions, announced that it has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire Captiva Systems, a producer of agency management software for group insurance brokers.

Atlanta--Jacada Ltd., a provider of solutions that accelerate business improvement, today announced Jacada Fusion, a first-to-market solution that delivers The Perfect Interaction between people, process, and information.

NEWARK, Calif.-- Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, today announced that it has released a new data formatting tool called the RMS Data Wizard. The tool is designed to help clean up and convert data about insured locations into a common format for use by insurance buyers, agents, brokers, insurers, and reinsurers.

NEW YORK--AIG Technologies, Inc. (AIGT), a member company of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), today announced the launch of WINS Now, a Web-based insurance processing system designed to streamline policy administration and increase speed to market for Managing General Agents (MGA) and small property-casualty companies, including start-up and virtual insurers.

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas--UICI today announced that, without acknowledging any fault, liability or wrongdoing of any kind and subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, it has agreed to settle a substantial number of its pending "association group" lawsuits.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.-- MassMutual Retirement Services unveiled new aged-based asset allocation options that allow defined contribution (401k) plan participants to select an automatically-adjusting investment strategy based on their anticipated retirement date.

The Agents Council for Technology (ACT), which is affiliated with Alexandria, Va.-based Independent Agents & Brokers of America, has published Guidelines for Effective Agent-Carrier Technology Agreements, a report that can help independent agents and brokers as well as carriers identify issues to address in technology agreements.These agency-carrier technology agreements supplement agency agreements by detailing electronic interaction expectations between agents and their insurance company partners.

COLUMBIA, S.C.-- Following health insurance scams that have hit South Carolina recently, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina has added new tools for consumers to use to report fraud.

IT spending continues to inch upward, according to Forrester Research Inc. A recent survey by the Cambridge, Mass.-based research and consulting firm found CIOs' rising optimism about their business climate will translate into a 2.4% spending increase in 2004, up from the 1.7% originally projected six months ago.The survey of more than 870 IT decision-makers at large North American companies also showed that business services, such as consulting, transportation, and construction, and finance and insurance firms lead other industries in year-over-year IT spending increases, with a rise in 2004 budgets of roughly four percentage points.

COLUMBIA, S.C.-- Insurance Services Office Inc. (ISO) has launched the new Microsoft .Net-ready version of its ISO Claims Outcome Advisor (COA) personal injury claims management solution. COA Release 3.1 offers major new features, including the Treatment Protocols function and enhancements to the COA Medical Library and Settlement Analyzer tool. This will enable claims handlers, managers and third parties across the entire enterprise to manage information about personal injury claims via a secure Web browser, thereby speeding up claims resolution, improving accuracy and ensuring best practices.

FARMINGTON, Conn.--Insurix, Inc., a provider of Web-based insurance sales and administration platforms, announced today that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care has successfully completed the launch of "Easy Online Renewal" for brokers. The Insurix-based system allows Harvard Pilgrim sales account executives, underwriters and third party brokers to instantly access and manage small-group renewals from inception through renewal presentation to case acceptance. With the Insurix platform, users can monitor and act upon all key events in the renewal process, resulting in improved retention rates and better customer service.

COLUMBUS, Ohio-- Ringing cell phones are a welcome sound to Nationwide, so long as the company's longtime jingle is playing. Nationwide is one of the first companies in the U.S. to offer an advertising jingle as a ring tone. Trendwatchers have dubbed the phenomena "jingle casting."

Rapidly submitting a timely First Notice of Loss (FNOL) report for a commercial auto or property insurance claim leads to faster settlements and satisfied claimants. The Hartford Financial Services Group, Hartford, Conn., now enables its independent insurance agents to electronically initiate the claim process for their clients.The Hartford, which boasts a strong record of deploying advanced technology for improved agency interaction, is now enabling independent agents to electronically submit a commercial auto or property FNOL, with attachments, from their Applied agency management system. It does this using IVANS Transformation Station, a managed data exchange using Web services and ACORD XML for real-time transactions between agency and carrier systems.

Data standards are critical to streamlining the financial reporting process, according to industry sources. And a new add-in to Microsoft Office 2003--to be released this summer by the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant--may be the missing link in the concept of "straight-through reporting."The Microsoft add-in will provide XBRL support within Word and Excel, and it will enable companies to automate manual tasks associated with using Word and Excel for financial reporting, says Mike Willis, founding chairman of XBRL International and partner at New York-based PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Blue Cross of California, Thousand Oaks, Calif., has expanded its physicians technology initiative to include 1,040 safety net physicians in California. Traditionally, safety net physicians provide care to the uninsured, poor and low-income patients, including those enrolled in the Medi-Cal and Healthy Families insurance programs.With an additional $2 million in funding, this technology initiative will help these physicians improve patient care, achieve greater efficiency and improve administrative functions. These new technologies are intended to provide greater access to information and data exchange via the Internet or wireless handheld devices.

Rating agency demands (71%), financial reporting issues (55%), shifting product preferences (55%) and changes in regulatory requirements (48%) are driving the industry's need for improved risk and capital management practices, according to life insurance company CFOs surveyed by the Tillinghast business of New York-based Towers Perrin in its latest CFO survey.As a result of such pressures, 86% of the CFOs surveyed say they are paying more attention to risk and capital management practices. Four out of five (81%) of the executives polled are going one step further; they are proactively implementing them.

For years, life insurance providers and their agents have relied on obtuse, text-heavy sales presentations to their individual customers. Too often, though, poor sales presentation tools fail to enlighten individuals concerning the magnitude of a life purchase.

WASHINGTON-- Millions of Americans buying health insurance on their own have a wide variety of products from which to choose, and most select plans very similar to the coverage available to working people in employer-sponsored groups.

It's no secret that for insurers, aligning technology staffs and business units into a full partnership has been challenging. Frederick Matteson, the newly appointed chief information officer for Novato, Calif.-based Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., isn't able to fully grasp the automation-related woes that have bedeviled insurers. That's because Matteson has deftly been able to avoid them himself.Having spent a number of years as an executive in the brokerage industry, Matteson championed the concept of total alignment between IT and business long before it became commonplace. A proponent of disciplined strategic scenario planning, Matteson has a keen sense of determining early on whether to expand or reduce a corporatewide initiative, including those centered on information technology.